Archive for April 2011

As the full title of the book suggests, Girls Like Us covers a lot of ground. At once a group biography of singer-songwriters Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, Girls Like Us is simultaneously the story of a whole generation of women in the U.S. who came of age in a time of great political excitement and confusion. In reading about their careers, we learn about the ways in which women of the “Baby Boomer” era struggled against the glass ceiling of the music industry, and in reading about their personal lives, we see the practical difficulties that inevitably arise during the navigation of newly acceptable gender roles in family and in love.

Having known nothing about Carly Simon or Carole King, I picked this book up out of curiosity about Joni Mitchell, whom I liked but knew little about, and an interest in personal accounts of women musicians in the ’60’s and 70’s in general. Simon, King, and Mitchell floated in and out of the same music scene for years, so it makes sense for their stories to be told together. I was surprised to learn that King (and her husband) wrote so many hits, performed by bands like The Shirelles and The Everly Brothers. Though I enjoyed finding out a little bit about Simon and King, I remained preoccupied primarily with Mitchell (and admit I was least interested in Simon). Any in depth reading about Joni Mitchell, though, comes with two warnings, I’m afraid.

WARNING NUMBER ONE: Reading this book (or any other about Joni, I bet) will likely have you listening to nothing but Blue on repeat, which may or may not be detrimental to your health, depending on how sensitive you are to the emotional pull of Mitchell’s tear-jerkingly magical vocal stylings. And those oddly tuned chords…don’t get me started.

WARNING NUMBER TWO: You might, like me, come to think you love Joni, not the musician but the human being, only to be terribly disappointed when you start to learn about all the racism and cultural appropriation perpetuated by her on her later albums–and in her everyday behavior, too. I mean really, Joni, REALLY?!

Weller glosses over this latter point with a “well, it was a different time…people just did that stuff”…but, no. I can not accept that “people” just dressed up in blackface as their “inner black person, a pimp named Claude”* (while also claiming to be socially colorblind, no less! ARGH!) to go to parties and whatnot and it was totally cool. In the ’60’s–’80’s?! Maybe in the 1860’s and ’80’s. Harumph.

Anyway, this aspect of Joni’s “artistic expression” really clarified for me that differing class backgrounds does not provide enough diversity from which to claim representation of “the journey of a generation”. The book was fun for what it was, but it was representative of a pretty privileged perspective and experience.

As mentioned earlier, I liked the book for the glimpse I got of the struggle fought by women musicians in such rapidly changing times to break through sexist barriers to musical careers. I learned a lot about what the music industry was like then, and I liked the gossipy tone Weller employed to talk about how the women’s movement of the ’60’s did not always, in every way, make things easier for women.

I must say, though, that I didn’t like Weller’s writing. She tends toward really long sentences, and includes a lot of superfluous detail about people and events who only come up once and really have nothing to do with the main narratives of the book. I also wish that she had spent more time on examining her subject’s artistic processes and thoughts/feelings about their work, and less on their romantic relationships with men. Not that those didn’t play hugely important roles in each of their lives, but really, the emphasis felt unfairly weighted.

Oh, and one more thing that might seem small but REALLY bothered me. I wasn’t going to mention this at first, but if not here, where? There’s a picture of Carly Simon with pals Hillary and Bill Clinton in the book, standing in a row with a third acquaintance, all with arms around each other’s waists and smiling at the camera (you know, posing for a picture totally normally like anyone would?) with the caption “The president’s hand tight around Carly’s bathing-suited waiste and that familiar, slightly-more-raking-than-Oval-Office smile speak volumes”.

WHAT?! WHY THE TOTALLY WEIRD, RANDOM, FACTUALLY UNSUPPORTABLE INNUENDO?!?! WHY? Are there really “volumes” to be spoken of here and, if so, why aren’t they mentioned anywhere else in the book? Seems like a cheap shot at both Bill and Carly (who Weller seems to consider particularly promiscuous) with no explanation. Again, why?

I set out to write a fairly neutral review. I liked the book well enough while I was reading it. But it falls farther in my estimation as I continue to think about it. At least I’ve got Both Sides Now to cheer me up! Just listen to the pretty song…

I’ve read three books by Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye, which I thought was fantastic; A Mercy, which I was terribly disappointed by; and finally, Beloved. Though The Bluest Eye might still be my favorite of Morrison’s works so far, I did really like Beloved and am pleased to have placed Morrison back on my better side.

Sethe, abandoned by her sons and suffering the recent passing of her mother, lives as freely as an escaped slave can in a cabin with her daughter, Denver, and Paul D, a man whom Sethe had known in her earlier days at Sweet Home plantation who has recently re-entered her life. But they are not quite alone in the house…there’s something else there, something unhappy. They are haunted, definitely, by the lingering spirit of slavery. But, in Sethe’s case, that diffuse spirit seems to have taken a form specific to her past and to her own escape from Sweet Home. As we learn more about Sethe’s history, the surreality of life in their creaky house builds to a palpable tension, begging to be put forcibly to rest.

Sethe’s history, and the history of U.S. slavery is, of course brutal, and Morrison’s sickeningly sweet way of telling it makes it only more difficult to swallow. Likewise, something about the element of magical surrealism in this story made it seem all the more likely. Well, excepting the chapters towards the end that are narrated by Beloved, anyway. Those were a bit too much for me. In any case, I found Beloved to be an absorbing read; one that left me with a tensed jaw and the feeling that I’d been punched in the gut.

Recommended to those new to Morrison or similarly disheartened by her most recent release.